Paul Angone Gives Us The Secrets to Getting Through Your 20s

Paul Angone talks about the reality of being in your twenties and the life lessons he learned.

The Biggest Issue

What would you say is the biggest issue facing 20 something’s today?

The main issue -- this twentysomething shoot ain’t easy! And that’s not what most twentysomethings expect. I know I walked into my 20s expecting it to be slightly sitcom-esque when in reality there were very few made for TV moments.

It’s a decade exploding with intensity and ambiguity. Anxiety and excitement. Purpose and pointlessness. Answers riddled with questions. Paradoxes mixed with 100 percent certainties. There are so many “firsts.” So much change. So many “what ifs, what nows, and what the hecks.”

As I write about in 101 Secrets for your Twenties, it took me a long time to realize that being successful in your twenties is about having the courage to write a really, really lousy first draft. Just getting words down on paper that we’ll edit later. To fail over and over, but never call yourself a failure. Then five rewrites later, we’ll lean back and say, “Wow, that’s actually not too bad.”

So yes, your twenties are going to be harder than you realized, which personally I’m now really thankful for–because you can’t have a good story without a good struggle.